SSL Certificates: What Small Business Website Owners Should Know About

Is your business handling online transaction via your website? If so, you’ve got to install SSL certificate. What is it and why it is important – if not mandatory – to install it?

I was surprised – and I am still surprised today. I’ve visited so many business websites doing transaction online, but they don’t seem to care to get their web pages – especially those capturing customers’ data – name, address, credit card number, and so on – secured well.

I remember visiting a business website and actually interested in buying the product offered – using a credit card. To my surprise, on payment information form page, it’s not having any SSL certificate or at least https:// on the page. The bottom line, the page is unsecured and everyone – with a script – can capture my payment information including my credit card numbers.

I left the site right away and never looked back.

You see, SSL is important. Other than protecting your customers from online threats, e.g. getting their personal and payment data stolen, letting them know that your website is secured using SSL (this is typically done by displaying a SSL badge) will help customers to trust you more; and we all know that trust means more sales.

Unfortunately, the importance is often underestimated. As your customers are often non-techie people who don’t understand what an SSL is, it’s YOUR job to ensure that their data is as secure as possible. Furthermore, having your customers’ data compromised will leave your brand image shattered.

Quite often, it’s not intentional, really. You might not understand why SSL certificate is important or why you should have https:// on your information capturing page. No worries, read on, as you will get some great information on SSL.

SSL certificate 101

As a business website owner, you need to know the basics of SSL certificate – so you understand why you need it and how to get it, as well as how to install it on your website. You can visit Wikipedia for such information, but you’ll soon learn that it’s too technical for the rest of us.

There is one resource I recommend you to speed up your learning process: An interactive infographic provided by Stay Secure Online, a Symantec site for its website security solutions, which can help businesses ensuring safe transaction online, protecting their customers’ data from online threats.

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